


Exit, Pursued by Troubling Feelings

by TeamHammerWeasel



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossdressing, Fluff and Crack, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Pre-Thor (2011), Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 10:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamHammerWeasel/pseuds/TeamHammerWeasel
Summary: Thor has himself and his friends recruited to act in a Midgardian play directed by Loki on very short notice.This can only end well.





	Exit, Pursued by Troubling Feelings

The first Thor saw of the scaffolding was when a half-erected beam nearly sent him crashing against a nearby wall.  
  
He directed the beam away from his face and nodded at the servant mumbling his apologies, then looked ahead towards the on-going construction. It was an impressive stage, large enough to encroach on the walkway before it and cast a shadow on all nearby plants. He wondered what it would look like once complete, and knew he wouldn't have to wait for long to find out: everything was being put together at record speed by a group of exceptionally surly servants.  
  
The reason for their sour mood was also perfectly clear.  
  
"I said burgundy, not red!" Loki was standing before the stage with his arms folded, glaring imperiously at a pair of servant holding a set of heavy stage curtain. There was a pamphlet in his hand, but Thor unable to read its title from that distance. "Get the right ones!"  
  
Thor approached as the servants hurried away. "Is this your project, Loki?"  
  
Loki's brow smoothed out as he nodded. "Father agreed to let me direct a play for the celebration next week."  
  
Thor decided not to ask if Father had also agreed to loan him the pair of golden and invaluable statues depicting Valkyries he saw being hauled up-stage, and instead focused on the play itself. "What is it about?"  
  
Wordlessly, Loki handed him the script.  
  
Thor frowned at the gold-embossed letters. _"The Magpie of Parma?"_  
  
"It's a very famous Midgardian play."  
  
"I didn't know you had any interest in Midgardian culture." Skimming through the play, it looked to be full of flowery monologues concerning treachery and back-stabbings. Not precisely Thor's idea of quality entertainment, but he knew how much Loki liked his theatrics.  
  
Loki shrugged. "Some of it is tolerable." He turned to give the evil eye at the construction-in-progress. "You can keep that script. The first rehearsal's tomorrow."  
  
The meaning of the words was obvious, but Thor still scarcely believed his ears. "What?"  
  
"Immediately after lunch, if possible. I shall tell you where we gather tomorrow morning."  
  
Thor shook his head. "I would like to help you, brother, but I can't act."  
  
"You don't need to act. All you have to do is to stand on stage with your sword aloft and try to look mighty."  
  
As casually as Loki claimed it, Thor doubted it was really the end of it. If he didn't watch out, he'd be conscripted to playing multiple roles and performing a complicated ballet before he knew what hit him. "Even so."  
  
"You get to slay a dragon." His voice was less casual, now. Pleading, almost.  
  
"I do?" Thor returned to the script with renewed interest. Even knowing it would be an illusory dragon, it still ought to be fun.  
  
After realising he was already devising potential moves for dealing with the wyrm, he closed the script and sighed. "All right. I will be there."  
  
"Good." Though he looked momentarily pleased, Loki quickly returned his attention to the construction. Still, after Thor had turned to leave, he called after him. "See if your friends can come, too. There are still some roles left to be cast."  
  
"I will." Thor left towards the training grounds, wondering both how much persuasion it would take to get Lady Sif and The Warriors Three to work in the project, and what exactly he had just gotten himself into.

 

* * *

  
  
"I can't believe you talked me into this," Lady Sif muttered as they headed towards the appointed place the following day.  
  
"I know," said Thor. "If you really don't wish to do it, I won't force you."  
  
"I gave my word," she said with a sharp note of finality to it, then exchanged a sullen look with Hogun.  
  
"Look." Thor turned around so he could face all his friends at once. "I know this is like leaping straight into a wolf's mouth, but it means a lot to him. Besides, it's only a week of our lives, and even if it's a complete disaster, we'll get a great story to tell when we go drinking."  
  
They looked mollified after the words, Fandral even managing a faint smile, but only Volstagg looked entirely pleased with their upcoming plans.  
  
"What are you grinning about?" Lady Sif asked.  
  
"I like plays," Volstagg replied with a shrug. "Always have. I've wanted to try my hand on the stage since I was a boy."  
  
Thor grinned back at him. "You've got your chance now." He led the group the short remaining way to a less frequented inner courtyard.  
  
Loki was waiting for them there, sitting on the low white-washed wall between the walkway and the shrubbery behind it with the script in hand.  
  
He looked up at the newcomers. "Good." Picking up a small stack of identical pamphlets, he distributed all but Thor their own copy. "We will start as soon as we have assigned the roles."  
  
"How many others will be joining us?" Fandral had been the first to receive his script and had at once leafed to the pages listing the twenty-headed cast of characters.  
  
"No-one. We will have improvise," Loki replied, then straightened his back as all heads swivelled towards him. "The story has it the play was once performed by only four players after the rest of the troupe dropped dead from some tedious Midgardian disease. We can do it if they could."  
  
Thor couldn't help but note the words did little to inspire his fellow players, but after a sullen moment of silence, Volstagg, who had been reading through the first act, looked up and asked: "Who else can someone playing Antonio play?"  
  
"Roderico, for starters." Loki began searching through the play for other possible double castings, and some of the mounting tension that had crept into the courtyard crept back out again.  
  
Thor leaned back and looked on as his brother and friends hashed out who would play whom, bemused but by no means complaining no-one asked him to take on a double role beyond a silent guard in the first act. From what he had learned of from his quick read-through the previous night, his chief role as Siegfall the Dragonslayer was brief and easy to learn. There was his entrance, where he introduced himself and his intentions to slay a dragon, a short love scene with Lady Cymbeline, a young woman of high virtue and a fondness for dramatic declarations, a scene in the fourth act where he actually slew the dragon, and finally a pair of lines in the final scene where he walked on stage, announced his impending death, and then immediately collapsed from a poisoned wound. He was hard-pressed to guess how any of it figured into the rest of the plot, which mostly consisted of scheming Midgardian nobles slaying one other in increasingly gruesome ways, but he wasn't about to complain.  
  
Finally, everything was settled. Thor joined the group as Loki flipped back to the beginning of the script.  
  
"To start with," he began, "we will simply read through the script with the roles I assigned. Guardsmen?"  
  
As one, Fandral and Thor stepped towards the centre of the courtyard. Fandral cleared his throat. "Lo, that after fifty summers of unceasing vigil I would live to witness this gruesome ta—"  
  
"Hold it!"  
  
Fandral looked up in askance to see Loki tapping the mosaic paving of the courtyard with his foot. "Yes?"  
  
"What is with your posture? It says the man is venerable and dignified right there in the script, and here you stand with your legs five feet apart and belt the words out without paying any heed to tone and cadence."  
  
Fandral brought his feet closer together, a storm cloud brewing on his forehead. "I beg you pardon?"  
  
As Loki replied in an equally catty tone and his other friends exchanged knowing looks, Thor sighed and decided to order a drink at the first possible opportunity. This was going to be a long afternoon.

 

* * *

  
  
Four hours later, they had somehow muddled their way to the end of Act One. Even more miraculously, they had done so without anyone throwing their script in their director's face in and walking huffily back indoors.  
  
Loki was doing his best to change that.  
  
"I don't care what it says in the script," he announced to the Hogun, who till then had responded to all criticism only by growing more and more laconic, but had now voiced a protest regarding an obvious contradiction. "The scene works far better if you push him down and climb on top of him."  
  
Lady Sif, who till then had been watching the scene unfold from the sidelines with the same weary amusement Thor felt, now spoke up. "How so?"  
  
"The symbolism is obvious. By climbing on top of Antonio," Loki gestured in Volstagg's direction, who was on his knees waiting for his next line, "Cassius is declaring his intentions to topple over his brute of a brother and seize control of the realm, overcoming and mastering the situation there as he does here."  
  
Hogun sighed. "I thought we were meant to only read through the script?"  
  
"Just do it."  
  
"You know," Volstagg commented from the floor as Hogun placed a hand on his shoulder, but before he could begin Cassius' spiteful rant, "I thought it was Antonio and Cassius who were brothers."  
  
"No, Antonio's brother is called Anatole," said Lady Sif, her eyes back on the script. "Cassius' brother is Ganymede, who is the lover of Hippolita who is betrothed to Antonio who is the son of the former Duke of Parma."  
  
Fandral, who stood next to her, frowned and peered at her script. "Isn't Ganymede Hippolita's brother?"  
  
She flipped back to the Dramatis Personae. "He is, yes. Eugh."  
  
"Is that a common perversion in Midgard, I wonder?" Fandral squinted. "Who is Peracles, again?"  
  
"As much as we enjoy listening in on your little book club," Loki interrupted icily, "I believe we were in the middle of a scene."  
  
After silence returned, Hogun let out one last sigh, then reached for his script and began throttling Volstagg. "Thou wretch, thou king of snakes..."

 

* * *

  
  
Finally, after the sun had begun to set, it was time for Thor's second real scene. The first one had been all Loki had claimed it would be: all he had to do was hold up a sword, in this case a twig he had found under an ash growing in the courtyard, and say a few words in a deep, booming voice before standing back and watching more of the inexplicable drama unfold.  
  
Now, however, he would have to prove himself. He stepped forward, checked his first lines from the script, then turned to where he expected to see Lady Cymbeline.  
  
He hadn't expected Lady Cymbeline to be Volstagg in a straw wig, if only because at no point had he seen him go fetch one.  
  
Volstagg batted his eyelashes. "A moment, noble sir, I prithee but a single moment."  
  
Thor grinned and glanced towards their director. Surely this was a practical joke by Volstagg and Lady Sif. But no: Loki looked on without so much as a single muscle on his face twitching, suddenly indifferent to the proceedings after all this time of complaining about every last detail.  
  
He realised he was meant to speak. "My Lady, all that is mine is likewise thine." Then, in a lower voice, leaning towards Volstagg: "How come you're the leading lady?"  
  
"We swapped roles," Volstagg replied equally softly. "This way Sif doesn't have to change costumes three times in five minutes, and I get to try out my twirling." He cleared his throat and continued out loud: "My prince, the wyrm which seeks to... to..."  
  
"To feast upon your noble innards," Loki supplied in a falsetto so shrill it made a pair of nesting doves residing by a nearby alcove hastily flee the scene.  
  
"To feast upon your noble innards," the bearded maiden repeated, trying his hardest not to grin and failing.  
  
The rest of a scene went on much as it had begun, but not once did Loki make sulky expressions or interrupt except to supplement lines, not even when Thor had burst out laughing at one of Volstagg's more emphatic line readings. It was as if they were finally allowed to have fun.  
  
"Then a token of my affection, my prince, to ward thee on thy perilous quest." concluded Volstagg.  
  
Thor checked the script. "I see it's time for the 'passionate and tempestuous embrace.'"  
  
"I am ready if you are," said Volstagg, opening his arms and gesturing at Thor to come hither.  
  
It was at this point that Loki interrupted. "Never mind with that. I trust both of you know how to kiss." He waved his hand dismissively. "You may as well save it for the real performance."  
  
Hogun and Fandral, who had had to take his shirt off and wave it like a flag, and drop on his hands and knees and howl at the sky like a madman respectively, exchanged annoyed glances. Volstagg, meanwhile, didn't appear to mind either way: at once, he stepped forward and gave Thor a friendly pat on the back. Thor reciprocated the gesture and they exited the imaginary stage smiling, speaking their final lines for the scene as an afterthought.  
  
Loki pinched the bridge of his nose, then looked up with newfound determination. "Good. Next scene."

 

* * *

  
  
The rest of the rehearsal went without incident despite Loki's return to form as an utterly insufferable director. Thor fought his dragon, which in this case meant shadow-boxing with a fluttering cape with a fanged face drawn on it. The incestuous love triangle and the surrounding plots played themselves to their natural conclusions, with every other major player except a character of Loki's, who now became ruler of all of the poorly-defined region of Parma, dead.  
  
Thor cleared his throat and stepped forward for his demise. "To think the wyrm's claws held such venom. Alas, I die." Gripping his chest, he fell on his knees and joined his friends on the floor.  
  
"There perish'd a hero the world dare sorely lose," Loki lamented, taking centre stage. "And all this for the want of an iron cuirass."  
  
That was the magic phrase. They all stood up, Fandral complaining about his sore back, then gathered around Loki  
  
Lady Sif was staring at the front cover of her script like it had just called her mother a foul-breathed weasel. "I think we can all agree that Midgardians are very strange people."  
  
Fandral nodded. "Did the dragon have anything to do with the rest of the plot?"  
  
"Was the verse meant to be off on every other line, I wonder," added Hogun.  
  
"Very well," Loki said brightly as though he hadn't heard the previous remarks. "That was tolerable, I suppose. Father said we have two hours to perform. How long did this take?"  
  
Hogun looked upwards to a blackened sky and its array of glittering stars. "Twelve, perhaps?"  
  
Lady Sif nodded. "Besides, will it not be difficult to have eight corpses on the ground at the same time with just the six of us?"  
  
Loki stared into the distance before snatching the nearest script. "Same time tomorrow, then." He left without so much as a farewell, furiously tearing through the script, flourishing a quill he had presumably procured out of thin air while Thor had blinked.  
  
Lady Sif and the Warriors Three exchanged glances.  
  
Fandral was the first to speak. "What are the odds he can tell the difference if come tomorrow, instead of us he finds a set of wooden statues carved to look like us standing here?"  
  
Thor smiled briefly at the mental image, then raised his voice. "I don't know about you four, but I am starving."  
  
His friends followed him, the tenor of their further complaints slowly transforming from vexed to borderline amused. They were downright merry once they got food and drink before them, their anecdotes well on their way of becoming drinking night staples.  
  
Thor laughed with them, glad of their tenacity, all the while hoping they had seen the worst of the production. It couldn't get much worse, surely?

 

* * *

  
  
It appeared it couldn't. Despite his misgivings that his unwarranted optimism would to draw the ire of the norns, the following five days went as smoothly as anyone could have hoped for after on the first day of rehearsal.  
  
Of course, Loki returned to the courtyard each morning with yet another altered version of the script, and the crew's nerves had been stretched to a breaking point by his sudden demand that Hogun and Fandral switch roles, and all this paled in comparison to the catastrophe that was the first and only costume rehearsal. Even after paring the characters down to ten and making some creative changes to the final bloodbath, actually managing the costume changes on time was a quest daunting enough to make even the most stalwart hero lay down his sword for good. Loki retaliated by slashing the script once more, but how it would actually play outremained to be seen.  
  
In the end, all of this affected Thor very little. His single role had remained unmutated from draft one to draft six, and now that he had learned his lines by heart, it was even fun. His friends weren't as pleased, but apart from some muttering when Loki proved especially tyrannical, they too had kept their spirits up. He was grateful to them: it would have been easy for each and every one them to abandon the endeavour and leave it in shambles, and yet they had stuck with it. He truly had the greatest of companions.  
  
Still, he thought as Fandral flubbed a line Loki had changed moments earlier without warning anyone, he'd be happy to finally see the curtains close the following day.

 

* * *

  
  
Finally, disaster struck. After all this time, it was almost a relief.  
  
Thor slammed the door to Loki's room open and showed himself in. "We're in trouble. Volstagg slipped while taking a bath and broke his leg."  
  
Loki responded by utterly ignoring his presence, then furiously overlining a line and flipping the page over.  
  
"He cannot stand at all, and—" Thor's shoulders fell. "And you have already heard about it."  
  
Loki gave him the curtest of nods before circling another passage. "I was aware of it, yes. We will have to adjust."  
  
Thor walked over and sat in the nearest vacant chair to inspect the changes being made to the script. If the current pages were any indication, they numbered in the hundreds.  
  
"Should I take on another role?" He didn't relish the idea of learning a new part in roughly five hours, but needs must.  
  
"That shall not be necessary." Loki finally took the time to look at him. "Do as you will afterwards, but don't mangle any limbs before the opening curtains."  
  
Thor gave him an encouraging smile. "I can promise to try."  
  
He left Loki to his whirlwind retooling, feeling strangely calm, belatedly recognising the feeling as the anticipation of an upcoming battle.

 

* * *

  
  
The audience that had drifted over to enjoy the play held dozens rather than hundreds, as Loki had rather listlessly pointed out, but it did include both the King and Queen of Asgard. They all applauded politely at Fandral's opening monologue, and from what Thor could see from the wings, they were trying their best to follow the tangled mess of what remained of the plot.  
  
He had already made his entrance, his feet dragging more than they ought to have, and had been surprised by how loudly his words had echoed on the real stage. He had brandished the prop sword, which looked so dazzlingly real he wasn't entirely sure Loki hadn't simply given him a real blade, and enjoyed the smattering of applause as he retreated off-stage. Since then he had been free to admire the well-crafted backdrops in the wings. When had Loki found the time to create all of them? Perhaps he had assigned the task to some long-suffering servants, but whoever had accomplished them could have impressed even dwarves.  
  
Till that point, Volstagg's absence from the play hadn't been too noticeable. Fandral had taken on the heavily altered role of Antonio, and presumably further reshuffling had happened while Thor had put on his stage costume, a supposedly heroic outfit which included a long glittering cape but not a single piece of armour. He'd see one change now, anyway: it was time for his scene with Lady Cymbeline.  
  
He strode back on stage, sheathing his sword as he did so, then waited for his co-actor. Who would it be, exactly? It couldn't be Lady Sif, since Peracles and Lady Cymbeline had an extended scene together immediately afterwards. Hogun in a straw wig? That would cause trouble later when Cassius had a plot-critical argument with the maiden in the fourth act.  
  
The curtains on stage left shuffled. Thor looked up.  
  
Then he looked again.  
  
Loki raised the hem of his long white dress and daintily walked centre stage. The long-serving straw wig which had become a running gag over the past week was nowhere to be found: he had combed his natural hair to the side in waves, and as he came closer, Thor saw he had woven tiny white flowers into it. Even with magic, it had to have taken some time.  
  
Thor's mouth was dry. The dress had no right to suit Loki as well as it did. To the most remote members of the audience, he must have truly looked like an elegant maiden rushing to meet her lover.  
  
Loki opened his mouth. "A moment, noble sir, I prithee but a single moment." No falsetto, this time: he spoke the words with his normal voice. Somehow, it fit.  
  
Belatedly, Thor remembered he was meant to speak as well. All that time he had spent hammering his lines to his skull, and now they all escaped him.  
  
"My Lady, all that is mine is likewise thine." he finally managed, then risked a glance at the audience. No-one seemed perturbed by what they were seeing. Perhaps this was perfectly normal after all and the inexplicable fluttering warmth within him was his concern alone.  
  
Loki smiled sweetly, with what looked like genuine tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "Alas, that Wyrd have decreed our short time must remain so, and yet I must speak."  
  
Thor frowned, certain these words hadn't been in the script during the final rehearsal, then remembered they were being watched and smoothed out his brow.  
  
Loki cast a demure glance at his feet. "Thou art my heart's king, thy reign unending. Though our paths diverge, my love for thee shall be as constant as the stars, as radiant as the sun in its splendour, as unyielding as the blade thou wieldeth even in the cold grasp of death."  
  
A moment later, Thor realised his mouth was hanging open. None of this had been in the script, but the sincerity used to utter the lines had made him forget both it and that they were acting. Lacking other options, he settled for reciting his own lines. "Maid, to thy devotion and thy wisdom I am ever a slave. To defy the wyrm, the grace, and the gods themselves is naught for the sake of thine."  
  
Loki smiled. "Then a token of my affection, my prince, to ward thee on thy perilous quest."  
  
Now they were back on script. All that remained of the scene was the kiss.  
  
Thor approached, his palms sweating. Should he simply kiss Loki on the cheek like he and Volstagg had during later rehearsals? Would it be strange if he didn't play his part as intended? Or what if he did play his part, only for Loki to object?  
  
He needn't have worried. Once they were close enough to touch, Loki showed no hesitation in wrapping his arms around Thor's neck and leaning in close till their bodies were against one another.  
  
There was a frozen moment during which the audience and the entire rest of the world vanished, leaving the two of them alone staring in each other's eyes. Only one question remained: could they really?  
  
A sharp intake of breath, and then Thor answered it by throwing caution to the wind and locking their lips together.  
  
Any fears that he was making a tremendous mistake were quickly shoved aside as Loki immediately reciprocated, closing his eyes and deepening the kiss of his own volition. Thor responded in kind, shutting out the world around them once more.  
  
He was light-headed by the time they drifted apart, faintly aware it had lasted far longer than was appropriate for the stage, but such concerns mattered as much as specks of dust in the moment. After all, nothing was on fire, except perhaps his blood.  
  
The audience was hushed and all eyes. He realised his hands were still on Loki's waist, and even knowing the scene would appear even stranger the longer he held on, he was loath to let go.  
  
Loki gave him a breathless stare, then blinked and pulled away, "Fare thee well, my lord." Raising the train of his dress once again, he glided off-stage.  
  
Unable to recall his final line, Thor slunk away, hoping against hope that only he could hear just how hard his heart was beating against his ribcage and that he could find some peaceful corner in which to calm it down before his next scene.

 

* * *

  
  
The rest of the play passed by with little notice from Thor. The illusory dragon was sparkly enough, and he received another spate of haphazard applause for pretending to ram a sword through its throat, but apart from that the audience remained curiously silent even when Loki stabbed himself with a prop knife and crawled off-stage only to return moments later in a different hat.  
  
When the curtains finally fell, and the final, muddled applause died out, he wasted no time expecting another curtain call, instead grabbing a bottle of mead and heading off to see how Volstagg was faring. His friends joined him on the way, cheerfully walking across the palace in their blood-smeared costumes, amused by the stares.  
  
Volstagg, with his leg propped up and half-eaten plateful of quail's breasts within arms reach received them with a wave, and listened to their summary of the events in good humour. Thor noticed that his scene with Loki was acknowledged with only the barest of mentions, and couldn't decide whether that bode well or ill.  
  
After they were done, Volstagg leaned back against his pillows. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there."  
  
"We are sorry as well," said Thor. "We know how much you were looking forward to this."  
  
There will always be another performance," said Fandral while helping himself to another drink.  
  
"Of this play, I doubt it," said Lady Sif. She was in a ponderous mood if the light frown on her face meant anything. "The audience was all but lost after the first ten minutes."  
  
"We could perform another play," Hogun said. He smiled more now that the production was done with than he had during most of the past week.  
  
"Even better, we could do so with a different director," Fandral added.  
  
It was at this point that Thor recalled that their director was indeed absent. He had known it all along, of course, but he hadn't allowed himself to think about it. Now, however, the vision of Loki during that brief moment after the kiss wouldn't leave him alone.  
  
He stood up. "I will be back soon."  
  
If his friends stared after him, he didn't notice.

 

* * *

  
  
He frowned when he found an armed guard standing by Loki's door, but was let in with a single quirk of the eyebrow. When he made his entrance, Loki had mercifully changed back to his usual robes, lounging on a chair with a drink in his hand.  
  
"I am surprised he let you in," he said while nodding towards the door. "I am to be grounded for a month, though I'm sure Mother will have Father seeing sense long before then."  
  
"On what grounds?" Thor sat down on the same chair he had that morning, suddenly very aware of the lack distance between their knees.  
  
"Some stupid servant claims he saw me near the baths when Volstagg broke his leg."  
  
The implication hung in the air between them. "You didn't."  
  
"Of course not. I'm sure Volstagg will tell you as much."  
  
Volstagg's recounting of how he had tripped hadn't involved Loki, that was true enough. "Then why?"  
  
Loki took a sip of his drink before continuing. "My best guess is that Father didn't care for the play."  
  
Heat rose to Thor's cheeks. "I meant to speak of that."  
  
Loki took a renewed interest in him. "You suspect the same?"  
  
Who wouldn't, now that it had been brought up? "He shouldn't punish you for something as harmless as a kiss, even if—"  
  
"I meant the political subtext of the play, Thor." But before Thor could protest at this interruption, a wicked smile spread across Loki's face, unmasking the ruse. "I can't say I have many complaints about the kiss. Did you see the looks on their faces? You can't buy those for all the treasures in Asgard, brother."  
  
Thor blinked. "Yes. You're right." He focused on his relief and tried not to dwell on why he also felt disappointed.  
  
Loki must have caught onto the sour note in his tone. "You didn't have to go along with it if you didn't consider it funny."  
  
"Not at all. I liked it." He could smile. It was better as a joke. Safer, too. Definitely safer.  
  
"We are in agreement, then." Loki tilted his head. "Of course, it could still stand improvement. Perhaps we ought to have a repeat performance."  
  
Before Thor could respond, he stood up and closed the distance between them. Placing a hand on Thor's shoulder, he leaned in and gave him a light peck on the lips.  
  
After they parted, there was a moment's delay during which he caught his breath, and then Thor jolted to his feet like struck by lightning. "I should go."  
  
"Probably for the best," said Loki quietly, sitting back down as though nothing had happened. "The door is guarded, after all. We wouldn't want to spark any additional rumours."  
  
Though he steeled himself, Thor couldn't resist the temptation to look back on his way to the door. Loki remained where he had left him, a hint of a smile lingering beneath a dark and ponderous gaze.  
  
The real performance of the day, it turned out, was mustering the effort to turn away and leave for the time being.


End file.
